Compact for Learning and Citizenship
The Civic Mission of Schools

Helping students become citizens and communities become educators.

There is a growing need for schools to produce citizens who have not only knowledge about civil issues such as how a bill becomes a law, but also a set of values about why citizenship is important and a set of civic skills that gives students a sense of efficacy and a commitment to be active, principled citizens.

Every Student A Citizen: Creating the Democratic Self

In response to the sense of national urgency around revitalizing the civic mission of our schools, the Education Commission of the States (ECS), through its service-learning project, the Compact for Learning and Citizenship (CLC), launched the Every Student A Citizen initiative. The initiative's goal is to engage all students in active citizenship and help education leaders meet schools academic and civic missions.

To meet this goal and with funding from The Ford Foundation, CLC created the National Study Group on Citizenship in K-12 Schools, a 21-member group comprised of K-12 and university teachers and students as well as representatives from national education organizations. The National Study Group's report, Every Student A Citizen: Creating the Democratic Self, recommends steps that schools and districts, states and national organizations can take to improve civic participation through service-learning.

The Report also called on ECS and CLC to take the lead in helping state and local policymakers to assess the state of citizenship education in their schools, develop policies and plans for improving the creation of the democratic self among their students and become part of the national campaign to implement the National Study Group's recommendations.

Schools as Citizens

With help from the Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation, CLC is implementing the first year of an ambitious project entitled Schools As Citizens: A Fulfillment of Their Civic Mission. The overall goal of the project is to identify service-learning policies and practices of K-12 schools at the state, district and school levels that encourage and support schools in preparing young people for active civic participation. Schools As Citizens will use a three-year approach that includes the establishment of demonstration sites in three states: Indiana, Hawaii and Vermont. The project's initial year, funded by this grant, will focus on activities in Indiana. With additional funding, the second and third years of the project will include activities in the other two states. The project will be carried out through a collaborative partnership with the Harmony School Education Center's National School Reform Faculty and the Departments of Education in the three states.

Education Leadership Colloquium

On July 17 and 18, 2001, college and university presidents and state and school superintendents met to discuss how to better educate students for citizenship. Organized by Campus Compact and CLC, participants in the Education Leadership Colloquium explored how K-12 schools and higher education can work together to accomplish the civic mission of education. Teams from California, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington and Wisconsin came together to develop action plans to address the "shared responsibility" they have to engage students in work toward active, principled citizenship.

With generous help from The Ford Foundation, the Education Leadership Colloquium serves as a springboard for a national effort to maximize education and community leadership to focus on ensuring the next generation of American citizens have the knowledge, skills, values, efficacy and commitment to advance our democracy.

Every Student A Citizen: Creating the Democratic Self

Click here for the ECS Character/Citizenship Education Issue Site.